Thursday, August 11, 2016

Pig Fence Set Up

Hey folks! As some of you may have
read, we recently got our first pig! He is an American Guinea Hog we
renamed Bruce (His former name was Tarragon. That just seems to fancy
for a pig, imo.), so he's not going to be huge when he's full grown.
Out of all farm animals, I never, ever,
thought I would own a pig. Like, the thought never even crossed my
mind, especially since pigs kind of freak me out. But anyways...

I
thought I would share a (relatively) short post on our fence set up
for Mr.Pig. It actually didn't take us very long and it was a lot
cheaper than you might think! Overall, we probably spent about 1 ½
to 2 hours putting it up and spent between $110 and $150 on supplies.
(I think it was closer to $110, but I didn't feel like digging for
the receipt, to be honest.) You can buy electric pig netting type
fences that are easier to set up, but we're cheap. ;) We do plan on
moving ours around as needed, so we'll see just how easy (or hard) it
is to move ours around in time.

Most,
if not everything, we bought for fencing was on sale. These handy
dandy step-in posts are normally $1.99 at Rural King and were only
$1.50! In fact, we bought 10 more when we were there next because
they were still on sale. Can't hurt to have extras on hand, right?
Other than that, we used galvanized wire, an electrifier/shocker (for
fence to make it electrified), extension cord, sticks and rope, and a
few electric fence clips for trees. John also rigged a small plastic
bucket to fit over the electrifier and cord ends so they don't get
wet when it rains. Oh. And we also ended up getting some gate
handles, though we don't really need them yet since we're turning the
fence off before checking on Mr.Pig for now. (More on that in a
minute.)

So
yah, not nearly as much to get started with pigs as I expected. In
fact, Bruce is a registered Guinea Hog and he cost about as much as
all of the fencing materials, so not a bad deal. It's not like we had
ever put an electric fence up before, so it was relatively easy to
execute too considering the short amount of time it took. However...

When
we finally brought Mr.Pig home, he escaped in about, mmm, 10 minutes
of us getting him inside his enclosure. Luckily, my father in-law saw
him get out and they helped us find him. I still can't believe we
actually caught him, but we did! (Only took an hour and a half
through our trees and thick brush. Ugh.) Our theory on him getting
out is that he was eating too close to the fence, got zapped and went
running out because my father in-law said he squealed pretty good
when it happened, so the fence was definitely working. (Plus we
checked it before hand as well with a tester. Oh yah. The tester was
like $15 too. Not necessary, but handy.) Moral of my story: Make sure
you test your fence, possible keep him/her in a smaller enclosure
within the fenced in area to begin with (especially if you have a
piglet), and keep an eye on them for awhile and have something on
hand to catch them with if needed!

He has a pretty sweet get up for such a little piggy!

Which
reminds me, we ended up using some old chicken wire panels left by
the previous owners to make a small, makeshift, temporary enclosure
for Bruce so we don't have any more mishaps. I think he would be fine
to be let out now since it's been over a week since we got him and he
gets VERY excited when he sees us (people=treats), but we'd rather be
safe than sorry.

Oopsie. I didn't mean to drop it on his head.

I
feel like I'm starting to get a little off topic, so I'll save the
rest of my thoughts for another post. Until next time...

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About Me

Hi! I'm just your average mom. I enjoy reading, doing crafty things, and doing just about anything outdoors; I even like yard work! My family and I are living the dream and getting our homestead/farm started. I like to blog about our random farm projects, homeschooling, and an array of parenting and semi-crunchy topics.